Talk:Tanks/@comment-76.3.214.231-20160918042040/@comment-94.70.58.69-20161113233053
Ex proffesional NCO tank crewman (non-US NATO army). Any kind of "Beehive" like or "Canister" like APERS tank shells, will cause massive destruction to biological targets within their cone of action. Anything biological hit even with one ball/flachette/sharpnel will be either mutilated, slashed in half, blown to pieces, in case of a lucky multiple hit on a single target it will partialy liquify because of the forces involved and best case scenario if a target is hit heavily injured. Each of the 1150 tunsten (super heavy and hard) balls in a canister shot traveling with 1450 m/s is more powerful (more kinetic energy) than the most powerful .50 sniper rifle bullet and can overpenetrate to mutilate anywhere from 1 to 3 biological targets and has the ability to even kill ppl in cars etc. A flachette from a beehive can be far worse (but with less casualties probably). The only way to survive such rounds is to be aware of the danger and both trained and experienced enough so to use the ground effectively, otherwise these rounds can uterly decimate whole crowds in just few seconds top. An APFSDS round on the contrary is uterly innefective against soft targets (it was designed as the ultimate antitank weapon). It is essentially a single huge flachette flying in insane speeds (some apfsds can fly much faster than 1750 m/s). The only benefit of such weapon against soft targets is that: It is insanely fast and accurate (if the tank is stationary so the gunner has no trouble taking a perfect shot the average stationary tank/gunner combination it has about the same accuracy than the average military sniper rifle/ army sniper combination in similar ranges). It can kill an insane number of soft targets in a streight line, including multiple unarmored vehicles and people inside as long '''as long as it hits something important while going through. '''Last but not least anything biological hit by an APFSDS ll be no more. The power it can transfer even if overpenetrates ll mutilate or even liquify partially the target/s. A HEAT or even better MPAT round (HEAT with better antipersonel features) will cause similar area dammage as a defensive grenade (but with more focus forward because of the force carried by the round being shot). The defensive grenade is the strongest grenade with the most range (not counting claymore because its not a grenade and its directional). Any, ANY soft/medium target (from organic to medium armored vehicles like APCs and most IFCs) directly hit by a HEAT is history (what about a small explosion followed by a burning jet of molten copper travelling against you with speeds of about 9000 m/s have fun surviving that). Its somewhat less accurate than APFSDS and much slower (about 1450 m/s or something and with the accuracy of the average military designated marksman/ DM rifle combination in average) but as you can see it still can do its job. A HESH or even better a HEP round will be about as effective as a MPAT more or less. Think about the strongest grenade but with far stronger explosion and less (but heavier) fragments. Oh and any soft up to lightly armored target will also be history. Its essentially C4, RDX or other fancy named military high explosive compounds flying at supersonic speeds comming after your arse. The accuracy is MUCH worse than APFSDS and even HEAT. Its still far more accurate than your average proffesional rifleman/rifle combination when shot from a rifled barrel. AND last but not least my favorite.... the WP round (called "smoke" for Political Correctness reasons :P ). It only has 3 negatives and 1 of those is totally meaningless. Meaningless negative no1: Its direct use against Humans is prohibitted by the Geneva convention about Chemical Weapons etc. You can only use it for smoke screen, antimaterial actions, target designation, lighting the battlefield and/or cutting off routes etc. Nobody ll give a fck in a zombie apocalypse scenario. Negative no2: It is not accurate and under specific conditions (very high temperatures and the round stored wrong) the round can be less accurate than HESH/HEP. But as you ll read later you ll realise that this is not so big problem. Negative no3: Small quantities of such tank rounds exist nowdays and as far as i know they are mostly for the 105 rifled main guns. Armies still use those rounds and tanks though (in fact 105mm tanks are more widespread than 120mm+). This round is filled with White Phosphorus which ll start burning in horribly high temperatures as soon as it comes in contact with the oxygen. Its smoke is hot enough to burn a human to death depending on circumstances but having "fragments" of the WP come in contact with your skin ll ensure heavy tissue dammage (as WP has also the tendency of getting stucked to fat). If you see victims they are either mummified, crisped or in the worse case still living but partially melted like a candle. Nevermind that the gas/smoke even when cooled is still highly toxic. Nevermind the multiple medium/general and heavy Machine guns some of whitch have the accuracy of sharpshooter rifles (coax .50 in single shots). All of our rounds for the AA .50 (in our army) were also API (armor piercing incendiary). Lets not forget that any round crushing on a soft target has enough kinetic energy to mutilate it without even need to activate or act properly. And JagonDragonWulf any tank being in "close" range with a horde is either totally broken or the crew suffers from mental redartation. Tanks can travel more than 50km/h in rough terain and 70km/h on road with Governors engaged. With Governors disengaged they are almost as far as a car and with some tinkering just as fast. A track can also be used as a weapon in close quarters if it comes to that (just as the WP/RP smoke/frag grenade system on the turret) and the crew supposely is equiped with weapons and grenades just like a rifleman. A tank's FCS range is from 3.5 km up to 5-6 km (a couple modern tanks) non counting barrel fired ATGMs for .75cm radius targets. For human targets its less but not by much because you dont need to directly hit anymore. Maybe 1-2.5 km for human targets depending on tank. The hardest part ll be to see such small targets in long range but if you go against zombie crowds it will be easy. Accuracy for the best tank guns can be less than 10cm/km for "short range" up to about 20cm/km for medium/long range (there has been atleast one test of Rheimental 120mm/L55 smoothbore shooting a 5 round group 9cm in height and 34 horizontally in 2km. Our army had similar results (about 17 and 32 or something) and even while on "high speed" move it managed to hit the moving target (smaller than a tank) about 3km away with every shot fired.